anthony cedric vuagniaux

Now this one caught us on the back foot I’m happy to say. Initially primed for review next week, we were momentarily at a loss what to listen to this morning finding ourselves twiddling our thumbs whilst hanging around the kitchen doing the weekend chores. Suddenly this reared into ear space and I don’t mind saying that for the next hour we found ourselves transported to flights of 60’s styled televisual / cinematographic fantasy where secret agents guarded against alien intelligentsia, spies roamed noir draped shadowy landscapes and gunslingers enacted death dealing duels into what can only be described as a cleverly concocted and lush melting pot of spectrum stretching soundtrack groove. Its author Anthony Cedric Vuagniaux a Swiss multi-instrumentalist it seems has a fondness for electronic / ethnic scores notably those adorning 60’s and 70’s cinemas which for your discerning ear are sumptuously gathered on this quite frankly alluring set entitled ‘le clan des guimauves’ via the plombage imprint. Crafted with an acute ear and an eye for detail, on this 15 track suite you’ll hear all manner of reference markers tumbling out of the grooves as though a who’s who of the coolest compositions of that era – the holy trinity that is Morricone, Mancini and Barry figure highly as do the likes of Barry Gray, basil kirchin and the leading ladies from the radiophonic workshop Daphne Oram and Delia Derbyshire (notably ‘la valse d’Andree’ as it skirts with almost Broadcast appeal). Add to that mix a healthy dose of L’Augmentation (none more so this being the case than on the demurring ‘Marissa’ which even manages to give a nod to musette), Bronnt Industries Kapital (as on the gorgeously dinked dream draped Francophile florets oozing throughout ‘la naissance des chambrioleurs’), Gnac (‘reveil a l’hopital’) and it all begins to sound like some craftily assembled extra curricula work by the Fantomas that takes you on an exploratory encounter to sonic spheres where inhabit the realms of lounge, smoking jazz, kooky vintage electronica and chamber noir. Here you’ll be greeted to the playfully crooked ‘le clan des guimauves’ as it playfully circumvents the character sound tracks individually scored for ‘once upon a time in the west’ notably the musicalia afforded to Jason Robard’s part as Cheyenne. Somewhere else there’s the funky futuro 70’s kooky chic of ‘mon corps est une arnaque’ shadow playing to an as were curious fascination for car chase lounge noir as re-envisaged by a particularly chirpy Add N to X while those who delight in the arpeggio drenched grandness of fortdax and the luxuriant ethnic tonalities of the Winston giles orchestra will do well to dive headlong into the twilight folds of the haunting ‘grand maman’.